We should have listened to our Cairo friend when he recommended that we postpone our plans until the next day. On the third evening of Small Bayram (the festival marking the end of Ramadan), downtown Cairo is bubbling over with excitement. After an agonizingly slow taxi ride, we are dropped off near the old Cairo Palace in an area packed with food vendors. Like Charlton Heston parting the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments, we carve our way through the crowds in order to reach the venerable Art Deco cinema.

We could have settled for a more modern venue but decided to pay homage to one of the last vestiges of Egypt’s cinematic golden age. The Cairo Palace was built in the 1940s, at a time when the city was a worthy rival to Hollywood. In fact, even before the Americans had begun hand-cranking film through a camera, the Egyptians were learning the basics from the Lumière brothers – early film pioneers who, on their first trip abroad, came to Egypt to capture its famous monuments on celluloid.

Something tells me the brothers wouldn’t have wasted a single reel on today’s Cairo Palace facade. The marquee is covered in peeling yellow paint and dazzling neon lights: an aging film star’s futile attempts to conceal her wrinkles with brilliant backlighting.

“Two tickets, please.” The young lady at the box office looks at me, confused. Holding up two fingers, I mime my wishes and am rewarded by a nod of comprehension. With two tickets triumphantly in hand, my movie buff friend and I walk in for the next showing of... whatever happens to be playing.

I always try and see a local film when I’m travelling, usually one chosen at random. This tradition began on a Pennsylvania vacation when my parents abandoned me at the multiplex, happy to be rid of their sullen teen for a few hours. That was the day I stumbled upon Jaws 3-D, in all its multidimensional glory.